Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1895. THE COST OF A STATE FARM.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5174, 5 November 1895, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1895. THE COST OF A STATE FARM.

Til i; last number of Hamrd publishes a debato ou the Levin State Farm, which ought to prove of special interest to the public taxpayer, who pays the piper, We havo been trying to estimate the cost of this undertaking, and as far as we can gather, the items of it are as follows: The original value of the DOO acres, wo put down at about £1,800; spent on clearing live hundred acres, £2,000; other improvements, £1,500; vote asked for and granted to continue improvements and purchaso stock, £2,500. When the farm is only about two years old, it is costing the Colony £7,800, and by the time it is able to run alone, this amount is likely to be considerably augmented. When the Government goes in for farming, it wants at, least j nine or ton pounds pet acre to bring its pigs to market, and wo put it to farmers, whether tlio pigs aro likely to be profitable on this basis, .Bnt 1 the point we wish to draw special attention to, is this; tho'Govcruniout for the past four or fivo years, have been driving, coaxing, leading >and encouraging peoplo to go onto land. They haya never | censed boasting of the number of impecunious persons they:.have settled on the soil, and have perhaps also regretted that they- could' not keep tlieni there. Indeed their land policy has been a record of disaster, surrender and forfeiture.; Now |the Minister of Labour'has discovered |that to run a farm, costs somewhero about ten pounds an acre of capital; and under these circumstances, ought not special settlers, perpetual leaseholders and eternal tenants, to receive advances from the Government, to enable them to develop their sections on the 6ame terms as the State Farm? The. Government admits that capital is necessary to clear bush land, and to grass, fence, and stock it, and their own estimate, derived from that best of all teachers, —practical, experience—is that the sum required is about ton pounds an acre. Hundreds of men, absolutely without a penny in their pockets, cannot improvd the land they havo taken up, without some capital, and why should not they havo ten pounds an acre advanced to them as well as to the Lovin Farm ? Probably the men thomselyes, would point out that five pounds nn acre was sufficient, and that the reason ten pounds an acre is required at Levin, is because the Government js rather in the habit of spending ten pounds of the taxpayers' money, for every five pounds' worth of value, The Levin Farm is certainly an object Jflsson, jyfaipJ.i proves the land policy of tte{Wnw# .te fe? a

It has been an experiment made at the cost of the taxpayer, and we sincerely trust that one such experiment will be deemed adequate, We do.not know who the farmer is, to whom the care of Levin Farm is committed, but nn expenditure, in loss than three years, of ten pounds an acre, is a little startling. If the State managed the farms of the Colony, it is quite clear that every one of thom would, in the course of few years, be set up by debts and difficulties. The State has proved its incapacity to farm, and the sooner lit gives up experiments of this kind, the better,